Tag: Latina Women

‘A Virtual Abortion Doula in Your Pocket’: Aya Contigo Helps Latinas Find Abortion Care

U.S. abortion bans impact 6.7 million Latinas in the United States—the largest group of women of color impacted by these bans. Many lack insurance, cannot travel and face language and cultural barriers to reproductive healthcare. 

To address these barriers, two Canadian physicians—Dr. Roopan Gill and Dr. Genevieve Tam—co-created Aya Contigo, an app with an embedded live virtual chat to help people access contraception and abortion. Ms. spoke with Dr. Gill, an OB-GYN with advanced training in complex family planning about her work with Vitala Global and Aya Contigo.

We Must Stop Catholic Hospitals From Closing More Labor and Delivery Units

When I became a registered nurse two decades ago, I chose to work at my local Catholic hospital: Ascension Via Christi St. Francis in Wichita, Kansas. This Mother’s Day provides a bleak reminder of the stark contrast between my Catholic employer’s public image and the reality inside its hospitals.

Ascension is one of the largest and wealthiest nonprofit and Catholic hospital systems in the United States. Ascension cut a quarter of its labor and delivery units, just in the last decade.

The Catholic health ministry boasts the mission of giving “special attention to those who are poor and vulnerable.” Act like it.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: The Rise of Women in Sports and Politics; ‘Democracy Works Best When Every Eligible Voter Votes’

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week, delve into FairVote’s efforts to champion voter access, discover a new documentary highlighting young women empowered within our political system, celebrate the historic viewership of the women’s NCAA championship game, and explore initiatives taken by some states to address disparities in maternal health for Black women.

When Every Miscarriage Is a Murder Scene, Poor Women Pay the Highest Price

The Alabama Supreme Court recently shocked the nation when it held that the word “child” includes frozen embryos. Treating an embryo as the equivalent of a child upends the fertility industry, as it threatens to end in vitro fertilization (IVF) services and puts the status of embryos already in storage in serious question.

While these implications are important to untangle, the brunt of the effects of fetal personhood will fall not upon families with the resources to undergo IVF, but rather on poor and non-white women. Every decision made by a pregnant person could be second-guessed by the government. Every step outside of the most risk-averse approach to pregnancy puts the pregnant person under the microscope of the state.

Who Runs the World? Women Mayors.

As St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones told Ms., “Men run for office to be somebody; women run to do something.”

More and more, women serving as mayors are part of the feminist frontline for advancing equal rights and are leaders on issues of concern to women voters. 

As seen throughout history, women mayors focus on feminist issues that many tend to overlook. Let’s bring intersectional issues to the forefront, and elect more women mayors to push forward our agenda.

Hispanic and Teen Fertility Rates Increase After Texas’ Abortion Restrictions

More Texas women had babies after the state banned nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, leading the state’s fertility rate to increase for the first time since 2014. The 2022 fertility data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, analyzed by the University of Houston, offers the first concrete look at how many more women ended up carrying pregnancies to term as a result of the 2021 law.

This fertility data offers the first accounting of how many of those pregnancies were actually carried to term and delivered in Texas. And it confirms advocates’ predictions that the impact of these abortion bans would not be felt evenly across all communities.

The Next Battlefront in the War Against Women: Fighting for Congress to Fully Fund WIC

Leaders in Congress agreed on a topline figure to fund the government for the next fiscal year. But it is certainly no cause for celebration. The long-overdue agreement will continue most of last year’s levels, while providing enormous boosts for the Pentagon. With rising costs, last year’s funding levels are not enough for federal safety net programs to meet the needs of struggling Americans. Simply put, more people need more help and they will not get it. This is particularly true among single mothers—40 percent of whom needlessly struggle with food insecurity.

It’s all part of Republicans’ plan to both restrict abortion access and cut nutrition assistance from low-income mothers, infants and young children—creating a new wave of the feminization of poverty.

Weekend Reading on Women’s Representation: Sexual Harassment Is Pervasive in State Politics; Remembering Sandra Day O’Connor

Weekend Reading for Women’s Representation is a compilation of stories about women’s representation. 

This week: Although Latinas represent 20 percent of California’s population, their representation in elected office lags far behind that; sexual harassment by sitting state lawmakers over the last decade is pervasive and ongoing; the urgent need for creating space for disabled leaders within the political sphere; former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor; and more.

Solutions to the Pay Gap for Native American Women Could Be Found in Their Tribes

November 30 marks Native American Women’s Equal Pay Day, spotlighting that those working full- or part-time are still earning only 55 cents for every $1 paid to non-Latino white men. Only Latinas have a wider gap. But 55 cents is, in many ways, an incomplete figure. 

There is much that is unknown about the nuances of the pay gap for Native American women. For years, the United States has failed to invest in data collection on Indigenous communities, making it difficult to reliably track wage gaps among the 574 federally recognized tribes.